The National Science Foundation gave a $4 million grant to several researchers led by a computer science and electrical engineering profession at UCLA for Project RoseLine, a study into improving how the internet of things will handle time. In this week’s podcast we interview the lead researcher on the project to understand how we currently keep time on computer networks and why that’s not going to work with sensor networks.

And lest you think it’s not important, imagine the chaos if your connected lights were all slightly off in their own internal accounting of time, meaning they wouldn’t turn on at once. Or worse, they might turn on at the wrong time. Now imagine this in smart traffic networks or in manufacturings and you can see the problem. But before we delve into the nature and quality of time, Kevin and I discuss Vessyl (a $200 connected cup), passive data collection and Amazon’s connected home strategy. Enjoy.